Crackdown 3 Xbox One review – An extremely explosive experience that leaves a lot to desire

Sumo Digital’s “Crackdown 3” ground pounded its way onto Xbox One and Microsoft Windows as a play-anywhere title on February 15th (2019, after a variety of delays since its announcement trailer way back in 2014.

Since then, we’ve had launch dates in both 2016 and in 2017 with the launch of the Xbox One X. However, it was not until December 2018 that light was shed on a final launch release!

“Crackdown 3” is visually basic, pretty at times, bland at others.

Fortunately enough for “Crackdown” fans, 2019 has finally seen “Crackdown” release and, after smashing through +8 hours of playing the game, I’ve concluded my thoughts about it.

“Crackdown 3” in a nutshell an extremely explosive experience. It’s unique and fun for fans and new players wanting to get a feel for its universe.

Why? Because we haven’t seen a great deal of games like this that were executed well enough to plow a good number of hours into since the days of “Saints Row 3” and “Saints Row 4”.

Even so, though, don’t put your money down yet! Whilst Crackdown 3 ticks a lot of the boxes you might expect from a game like this, it misses some crucial elements that sadly enough cannot be ignored.

Despite the fact that a four player co-op support already existed on the 360, it’s dialed back to two for Xbox One…

Don’t get me wrong, “Crackdown 3” has its moments but it’s not incredible as such, because it’s nowhere near as awesome as the PS4’s “God of War”.

So while they’re completely different games, I still think more could have been done to make this exclusive stand out amongst the Xbox Platform and its fans.

I mean, the caliber of exclusives from Xbox has done little to stand face to face with rival platforms…

So, what really can you expect from “Crackdown 3” then? Well, you can expect tons of fun, oddly amusing glitches, mild humor and blowing things up or punching enemies right into next week!

What “Crackdown” does well is the feeling of empowerment, as you get to jump to grand heights, tanking your opponent’s bullets lead like a sponge and taking on the role of an ultimate badass straight out a Michael Bay movie.

There are plenty of orbs to be found in the game, and they allow you to run, jump and become even more powerful.

Returning to “Crackdown 3” are the collectible orbs that were seen in previous entries, and they are back in the form of agility orbs which enhance the player character’s agility and hidden orbs that grant additions to the character’s other stats.

As for the game’s story and plot goes, “Crackdown 3” takes place 10 years after the events of “Crackdown 2”, and you take the role of Commander Jaxon – played by Terry Crews – the highest-ranking agent in the agency.

Your mission to investigate terrorist attacks taking place across the entire world from an unknown source. This investigation eventually traces back outside Pacific City to New Province which is controlled Terra-Nova, an organization interested in the establishment of a new world order.

“Crackdown 3” is explosive and action intense to the max with no doubt.

The first strike at Terra-Nova fails, but the CEO of Terra-Nova Elizabeth Niemand is led to believe the Agency is extinct. Echo, a fellow citizen amongst others seeking for refugee over the mountains towards New Province sees the ship wreckage and brings the agent back to speed and helps them recover.

You are then re-connected with the Agency’s Director Goodwin to take down Terra-Nova to stop the attacks and construction of weapons of mass destruction and regain peace and restore power across the globe.

And just like its predecessors, you will wreck your way through New Province that will lead to surrounding members of Terra Nova to come out and battle it through until you reach Elizbeth to stop her madness and propaganda to its citizens!

“Crackdown 3” allows you to be the bad ass that you’ve always dreamt of being.

But whilst “Crackdown 3” is an open action adventure/open world game, the playground it offers isn’t all fun and games.

Right off the bat, “Crackdown 3” continued to miss a lot of launch deadlines that might lead you believe that the game would be far greater than it is.

However, the hard truth is that “Crackdown 3” is just like any other “Crackdown” game with a sci-fi setting, new world and weapons to cause mass destruction and nothing new or exciting to add to the experience.

Furthermore, the poor mission structure that has been brought over from previous games…

But had with little thoughts about how to improve it, becomes a rinse and repeat process with go here, kill a few enemy Ai, run here, blow up a few tankers, and kill one of the leaders and keep doing it.

You can level up your super-agent skills throughout the game (some skills allows you to jump over skyscrapers, and toss trucks at your enemies, for example).

So truth be told, “Crackdown 3” just feels awful and is so tedious that I almost ended up not wanting to finish the game because I got bored…And this doesn’t happen often with a lot of the games that I play.

That’s just the half of it though, because “Crackdown 3” became cringe-worthy to the max in the game’s intro cutscene and then again in a further cutscene after you’re saved.

So even with the many different characters of Agents to choose from (whom have been scattered around the world though collectable DNA pieces, which offer increases in experience gain or small benefits in other skills), it really felt so small they aren’t worth using and still your playing as Agent Jaxon because your lapping their DNA with yours it really gets confusing…

So with the announcement trailer back in 2014, and the “power of the cloud” trailer, “Crackdown 3” has had little connection from what the game has turned out to be today…And perhaps set an expectation for what the game might become, both negative and positive.

For the most part, “Crackdown 3” should be able to please both old and new fans of the series.

It’s also worth pointing out that it seems like Sumo Digital focused less on Crackdown 3’s core single player experience as there’s an all new online multiplayer mode called “wrecking zone”.

So despite the fact that many other games on the market handles destruction quite well (“Red Faction”, “Mercenaries 2”, etc.), “Crackdown 3” doesn’t do anything to blow you away.

So after spending some time with Crackdown 3’s online mode just felt weak on content that drew away from its single player…Not to mention the fact that Sumo Digital took the 4-player co-op experience and brought it down to 2, and then locked it at 30 fps.

Furthermore, “Crackdown 3” becomes very repetitive after a while, and the game offers a boring story and characters that you don’t care about!

Then you got the odd game freeze bug that doesn’t last long but happens frequently enough to become an annoyance on the Standard Xbox One.

It’s a really big shame that “Crackdown 3” has such a poor online multiplayer mode, because it’s a missed opportunity with no doubt.

Finally, whilst Crackdown 3 isn’t a hot mess to its core (I had plenty of fun with it), it’s nothing more than an average game that lets you smash your way through its open-world playground.

I mean, sure, “Crackdown 3” makes you feel like the ultimate badass and keeps a lot of fan favorites about the game. However, it’s let down by poor storytelling, characters that you don’t care about and the fact that “Crackdown 3” adds nothing fresh to the experience of play.

Instead, “Crackdown 3” adds in a take on a new multiplayer mode that’s quite weak in content…And trust me when I say this, it will be a hit and miss amongst players.

As much fun as I had with “Crackdown 3”, the game suffers from poor replay value, and the storytelling is anything but well-made.

That’s also why all of this left me to believe that rather than making a true single player experience that players will love, Sumo Digital made the wrong call to focus on a multiplayer mode that no one asked for.

So at the end of the day, it all comes down to what you want, and with £50 price tag, “Crackdown 3” is a hard sell with no doubt. However, if you pick up the game on Games Pass, then it’s worth playing for some explosive fun.

Even so, I just wish after all these years of waiting that Sumo Digital would have delivered more of what they initially promised…

Pros:
+ An Explosive fun playground to toy around in
+ Keeps a lot of what fans cared about from previous games
+ Be the Badass you always dreamed of

Cons:
– Poor storytelling and characters to care for.
– Weak in content for replay value.
– No fresh content or features that would want players to come back after.
– Poor online multiplayer

Verdict:3/5
Crackdown 3 offers an extremely explosive game experience with no doubt, but the game leaves a lot to desire on many fronts. However, you can grab Crackdown 3 today using game pass if you haven’t used your free 14 day trail already (you can normally also grab game pass very cheap, for example, I got two Months for only £2!)